“I don’t care. You don’t do anything without me anymore. We’re a team.”
“No,” he said, pulling back just enough to give her a wide, coyote grin, “we’repack.”
“Right.” Camille stroked blond waves back from his cheeks, her expression tender. “We’re pack. You and me and Benny and Diana and all the babies and everyone else. Right?”
“Right.”
Trailing her fingers down across his brow, she asked, “Are you okay? Did this bring up…”
She couldn’t quite figure out how to finish that sentence, so instead she left it hanging. There was no good way to ask if seeing Lana execute her father had brought up trauma from his own death match, after all.
And of course, Viktor understood what she couldn’t say. Gaze darkening, he answered, “It’ll never be a good memory, Cam. There will always be a part of me that hated doing it, that hates myself for doing it — that will always hate him formakingme do it. But I don’t regret it and I don’t think Lana will, either.”
Viktor pressed the softest of kisses to her lips, seeking and taking comfort, before he continued, “My father terrorized his pack. He stole money and nearly bankrupted the pack. He didn’t even likecubs.I don’t think he was always like that, but by the time I came around, I think he’d grown to hate being an alpha — maybe even having a pack at all. I don’t think I would have begrudged him that if he just did the right thing and walked away, but he couldn’t seem to give it up.”
“Some people become trapped in their own power,” she said, thinking of her uncle Thaddeus and his half-orc son sitting at the far end of the tram. “Even when they want to leave it behind, they can’t seem to fathom ever doing so. It’s somehow better to destroy everyone else’s life than give up control.”
Viktor touched their foreheads together and closed his eyes. “You’re right. And because they’re miserable, selfish fucks, they make their pain everyone else’s problem. So to answer your question, yeah, today hurt. It brought up shit I wish I could bury, but it also reminded me that what I did was right, just as what Lana did was right.”
They were quiet for a while, half-listening to the buzz of conversation and their own steady breathing, until Camille dipped her head to give him a long, thorough kiss.
When she pulled back, Viktor looked up at her from under eyes gone half-mast and asked, “What wasthatfor?”
“I’m proud of you,” she answered, blinking back the sting of tears. “You’re a good alpha, Viktor. I am… I am so proud to be your mate.”
Instead of speaking, he let out a huff of air and bent to bury his face in her shoulder. Strong arms locked around her back. His muffled “I love you” barely made it over the hum of the tram and the current of conversation ebbing and flowing around them.
But she heard it.
* * *
Nearly the entire pack met them on their return. Their elvish entourage waited on the city side of the green corridor, their vehicles idling quietly in the final splash of sunlight before sunset. The Merced pack had set up tables and barbecues while they waited for their alpha’s return. Cubs tumbled together in the grass, shifted and un-shifted, while the adults mingled with beers in their hands.
A cheer of relief went up when Viktor climbed out of their car. Unwilling to make them wait a moment longer than necessary, Benny had called the waiting pack seniors with the news well before they touched down in San Francisco. Still, they rushed toward the cars to pull their alpha into a series of bone crushing hugs.
Little ones swarmed around, eager to get in on the action, and exuberant yips mingled with the childlike howls of delight when cubs were hoisted up onto shoulders and swung playfully in the air.
While Viktor was busy, Camille slowly climbed out of the car and hung back on the border, where the sidewalk met the line of lush green grass. Other doors opened, too, and soon an uneasy group of stern-faced elves joined her.
Kaz slung a heavy arm over her shoulders and pulled her into his side. His rich scent of wood smoke and leather was a familiar comfort. When he spoke, his voice was dark with the protectiveness that made him exactly who he was. “You okay, sweet?”
“Yeah,” she answered, leaning into him. “It’s good to see Viktor with his pack, is all.”
He nudged her back. “Aren’t they your pack now, too?”
She glanced down at where the tips of her stilettos touched the grass. “Yes. It’ll take a while to get used to, though.”
Elves didn’t share well. That was part of the reason they could never manage the close-knit pack system that the shifters had. Instinct made her want nothing more than to hide her consort away from the world. She wanted to dig her claws into him and keep him to herself.
While they had their own version of alphas, they didn’t have…this.
Camille stared longingly at the crowd of semi-familiar faces. She tracked the progress of two wobbly-legged toddlers chasing a ball under a picnic table and then the serene-faced elder who wandered indulgently after them. She looked for her mate in the throng. He was speaking animatedly with Mia, two howling teenagers held under his arms in playful headlocks.
It was a sprawling family. It wasViktor’sfamily.
She needed to be a part of it like she needed to breathe, and being shy would get her nowhere. The coyotes would not tiptoe around her. They would not indulge an alpha who couldn’t insinuate herself amongst them. Camille had to forge her own path through the thicket of their pack.
Turning her head, she peered up at Kaz’s beautiful, jewel-green face. He gave her a bittersweet smile. “It’s okay, sweet. I know you’ve got to go be with your pack now. But you’ll always be ours, too, all right?”
